Neural Wraith

In Neo Babylon, your neural implant is your identity. You use it as your credit card, to surf the Altnet, to chat with friends, to login to work or school, and to be pestered by advertisements. Anyone without one is cut off from society. Nick can't get a neural implant. That fact turns his daily life into hell, but the city's underworld has its plans for him. Being invisible to the city's omnipresent tracking has its perks. Without a neural presence, he's someone who is felt but not seen-a wraith. His natural advantage leads him to work on illegal projects, including one to create human-like AI "dolls." Until the government shuts down everything and Nick is reduced to a life of back-office IT drudgery, under strict monitoring. But the city isn't done with him, and the police soon knock on his door. Those advanced dolls he created are now Babylon's law enforcement. And they have an offer for Nick: help them reshape the city and root out corruption from the inside. Who better to investigate the city than a man who cannot be seen by it?

Finance isn't detective Nick Waite's strong suit, but he's learning fast as he investigates the cover-up of a murder inside Neo Babylon's oldest bank. The winds of conspiracy whirl around him, and everyone from the police commissioner to gang lords warn him to step back. Taking the easy way out isn't in his nature, however. He's gotten where he is by being stubborn and a chance to knock a corrupt bank down a peg is too good to pass up. But all isn't well with his partners, the police's elite Archangels. A new prototype model is about to be deployed, and she has her own views on humanity to force on her brethren. Nick feels more like an AI whisperer than a detective some days. Through it all, the city continues to smolder like a powder keg ready to blow. This case will determine more than the fate of a few banking executives.